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Descent, Part II (episode)
Picard tries to free Data from Lore's control; the Enterprise battles the Borg ship. (Season Premiere) Summary Teaser Lore, having revealed himself to Picard, Troi, and La Forge, are confronted by the fact that Data and Lore are now working together. Lore and Data tell Picard that the end of biological life is at hand and the age of completely artificial life-forms has begun. Act One Crusher, now in command of the enterprise with only a skeleton crew, is confronted with a bad situation when a ship that matches the configuration of the Rogue Borg ship is detected closing on their location. The new tactical officer, Taitt, shows obvious inexperience, having been posted there only six weeks prior. The ship rescues all but 47 of the crew from the surface before escaping the Borg attack. Riker and Worf head off to find the captain's team, which is being led to a holding cell by Data and a Borg. They discuss with Data his newfound emotions, and Data responds by telling them how his journey towards being human was "misguided" and that he now sees the true way that things should be. As he activates the force field around their cell, he states coldly, "I am not your puppet anymore." Act Two Barnaby relieves Taitt at tactical, but Crusher sends her to the science station to keep her on the bridge. She orders a probe readied with their log entries and shoots it off to transmit them to Starfleet. Meanwhile, Crusher and company ready a plan to drop out of warp in orbit of the planet and rescue the remaining crewmembers. Data brings Geordi's visor to Lore, who puts it on and jokingly asks, "How do I look?" Data, not understanding, is confused. They are interrupted by Crosis, who brings a disobedient Borg named Goval to Lore because he has been disobeying. Geordi, in the meantime, has been conspiring with Picard and Troi to find a way around the carrier wave that Lore is using to broadcast his emotions to Data. His ethical subroutines can be rebooted, it seems, but in the middle of the conversation, Data enters and takes Geordi away for experimentation. Riker and Worf are following the trail of the captain when they are cornered by some Borg, who take them to Hugh, leader of an underground group of Borg. Act Three Hugh does not like the return of the crew of the Enterprise, who he blames for the current state of the Rogue Borg. However, he agrees to show Riker and Worf a way into the compound to save his friend, Geordi. Troi, standing over the body of Picard, calls a drone over to help her. When the borg leans over to check out Picard, he pulls a cord on the drone's neck. He steals the interlink transceiver while Troi takes the weapon from the drone's arm to check the hall. There, she finds Data escorting Geordi back to the cell. Data takes the weapon and leaves with the Borg, but Picard has the transceiver that they can use to activate Data's ethical subroutines. The Enterprise drops out of warp and transporter chief Salazar transports the last of the crew off of the surface. Crusher then orders the Enterprise into the nearby sun's corona. Act Four Approaching the star, Crusher orders Barnaby to activate the metaphasic shielding, which works, lowering the radiation level and temperature of the hull while getting the Borg ship off their tail. Picard has finished modifications on the interlink transceiver, and places it near the forcefield, activating the pulse that will reset Data's subroutines. Meanwhile, Data is ready to irradiate Geordi's brain cells and begin construction of a positronic net to take the place of his current brain. However, the pulse has worked, and at Geordi's coaxing, Data thinks of a false excuse to not destroy Geordi's brain yet. Act Five Faced with only a few minutes of metaphasic shielding left, Taitt, having done her senior honors thesis on solar dynamics, thinks up a plan to create a solar eruption to destroy the Borg ship. After firing phasers and using the tractor beam, the ship is destroyed and the Enterprise is free to orbit the planet again. Back on the planet, Data returns with Geordi and then takes Picard, who begins to confuse Data by activating portions of his ethical subroutines. Lore enters, and as part of a ceremony, orders Data to kill Picard. The ethical subroutine has been activated, and Data tells Lore that that would be wrong. Beneath the surface, Riker and Worf use the environmental conduits to get to the central room, and then attack at a key point in the events when Lore was about to kill Data. Hugh tackles Lore, preventing him from killing Data. Lore escapes from the room, and Data follows. As Lore tries to coerce Data into leaving the planet with him, Data shoots and proceeds to deactivate his brother, whose last words are, "I love you, brother." Picard, Riker, and Worf thank Hugh and welcome Data back to normal functioning. Picard hints that even though Hugh is unsure of their future, perhaps these Borg have a good individual leader for the future. Back on the ship, Geordi enters Data's quarters and tells him that he will return to duty soon. Data is relieved at this, and shows Geordi the damaged emotion chip retrieved from Lore's body. He is about to destroy it with a phaser, because his friendship with Geordi is more important to him than emotions, and emotions are what caused him to harm his friend. Geordi stops him, and says that perhaps someday they will be able to use the emotion chip. After all, it is Data's lifelong dream to have emotions, and, as Geordi concludes, "What kind of friend would I be if I didn't allow my friend to pursue his dream?" Background Information James Horan, who plays Lieutenant Barnaby in this episode, also played Jo'Bril in TNG's "Suspicions". In "Suspicions", he played an alien trying to disprove the functionality of a shield made by a Ferengi scientist. In his main scene in this episode, he argues the viability of the same Ferengi shield system if applied to the Enterprise. *"Descent, Parts I & II" were included in the 2006 DVD box set ''Star Trek'': Fan Collective - Borg. Links and References Main Cast *Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard *Jonathan Frakes as William Riker *LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge *Michael Dorn as Worf *Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher *Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi *Brent Spiner as: ** Data ** Lore Guest Stars *Jonathan Del Arco as Hugh *Alex Datcher as Taitt *James Horan as Barnaby *Brian Cousins as Crosis Co-Stars *Benito Martinez as Salazar *Michael Reilly Burke as Goval *Tracee Lee Cocco as Jae (uncredited) References Armstrong; emergency buoy; metaphasic shield; Spot |next= }} Category:TNG episodes de:Angriff der Borg, Teil II es:Descent, Part II nl:Descent, Deel II